Letter From Jenny Moxham as published on Daily Mirror (Srilanka)
November 23, 2017

White Ribbon Day - November 25th - was initiated to help stop violence to
women. Clearly a deserving cause. But I’d like to see the initiation of
another ribbon day for an equally deserving cause. I’d like to see the
introduction of a Scarlet Ribbon Day which would be aimed at stopping
violence to animals.

Now, when I say animals, I'm referring mainly to farmed animals because
these are the animals abused in the greatest numbers.

Every year more than 65 billion cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and other
sentient land animals have their blood violently shed in the world's
slaughterhouses, hence the significance of the colour scarlet.

Slaughterhouse workers attest to the fact that many animals on the
assembly line are still conscious and blinking while the cutters are
dismembering them. "They die" one worker affirmed, "piece by piece" .Many
chickens and pigs enter the scalding tanks fully conscious. But, even before
these hapless animals reach the slaughterhouse the majority will have been
subjected to a lifetime of violence.

Chickens will have had their beaks agonisingly burned off with lasers or
red hot blades. Pigs will have had their tails and testicles cut off with
knives. Sheep will have had a large section of skin sliced from their
buttocks with shears and cows will have been agonisingly dehorned or
branded.

The severe and inhumane way farm animals are confined causes immense
psychological and physical pain. Most are reared in large windowless, sheds
euphemistically referred to as intensive "farms''.

Believe me, these places bear no similarity whatsoever to the farms in
our childhood story books. In these new age farms, sows are confined in
body-hugging metal and concrete pens in which they can't even turn around or
take more than one step forward. All they can do is chew on the metal bars
in front of them and many go insane with grief.

Chickens are crowded into sheds that may hold 30,000 birds. As they grow,
their floor space increasingly shrinks until they can barely move and the
ammonia laden air burns their eyes and lungs.

Because they are deliberately bred to gain weight at an abnormally fast
rate, many birds are crippled and in chronic pain by the time they reached
slaughter weight.

attery hens are locked inside cages in which they can't even stretch
their wings and most live with broken bones due to calcium depletion caused
by constant egg laying.

On White Ribbon Day we remember the women who are the innocent and
defenseless victims of abuse. These farmed animals are, likewise, the
innocent and defenseless victims of abuse so isn't it time to bring on a
Scarlet Ribbon Day and help usher in a more humane world.

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